


An introspection into a nation's mind

by FrenchBlue32



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Historical Hetalia, Historical Inaccuracy, Introspection, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, hope it’s still fun and educational tho, with the way I wrote this I had to take some artistic liberties unfortunately
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 20:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchBlue32/pseuds/FrenchBlue32
Summary: “In Chinese tradition, dreams are conceived of as an experience of the soul that leaves the body during sleep. Immortals have no dreams because they do not have aspirations or desires.”Which is ironic, if you asked Yao. For a nation as old and seemingly immortal as he, he’s had many. And in his quietest moments, sometimes his thoughts stray in deep rumination of them.—-《夜有所思所有日梦》“Thoughts during the day will become dreams at night.”





	An introspection into a nation's mind

From time to time, China dreams of towering skyscrapers and mute crowds, a scene all too familiar to him, only sped up--the people, a blur of short life spans. It’s not always the same city. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice tells him that this time it’s Nanjing. And he stands there, etched in a never ending, seamless time capsule. He looks down at himself, noting calloused hands that hide years of scars and blisters under surreal soft skin--at least what Yao considers to be soft. The next he pointedly sees are sleeves that bear no rips or wears, no blood or emblems. It’s only a second before he understands that he’s wearing civilian clothing, and Yao realizes he’s completely invisible to the crowd, hidden in plain sight. Sometimes, he thinks the first level of hell isn’t being thrown off a cliff into a pit of knives or being fried in a cauldron of oil. Perhaps this is the first level of hell: five thousand years of tired existence with seemingly no control over his fate.

\---

Yao walks the halls of the United Nations building in a rush, past nameless people wearing black and white colors that make them all look identical. One waves at him, with a chirpy, “Nǐ hăo, Mr. Wang!” Yao almost passes by him without acknowledgement but manages a polite smile and nod towards his general direction. He can’t remember who the western man was. Maybe someone he met at an embassy? The pondering is fleeting, quickly falling and dissipating into a pool of insignificant thoughts.

He has to seem calm and collective, yet busy and efficient all the same. The meeting is in only five minutes and the Chinese nation curses flight delays and the size of the UN building. He feels a tingle at his fingertips, magic flaring on the inside in hopes to maybe at least increase the speed of his pace a little. There’s an annoyed sigh crawling up his throat, but he suppresses it inwardly like he does the mythological force coursing through him. Yao likes to think he’s remained relatively composed so far as he turns into another hall, steps becoming more determined the closer he feels he gets. Yao appreciates the inner energy’s itch to assist, but it doesn't always come at the most convenient of times. He’d like to keep this up without any extra trouble.

With a glance down at his watch, he swears in Chinese under his breath, seeing that he’s now a minute late. Luckily for him, Germany has too much respect for the old nation to really give him an earful. The only thing Ludwig does is remind Yao to watch the time after releasing an exhausted bout of air from his younger lungs, or whatever counts as lungs in the mysterious innards of a nation’s body.

At this point, Yao is frantically scanning every single plaque, focusing his energy into his eyes, sharpening their sight. He nearly cries out loud in relief when he sees the correct numbers of the meeting room, roughly grabbing the doorknob in subsequence.

He barely catches himself, halting the urge to violently jerk the door open and lecturing himself to ease his anxiousness. 

The door opens silently and Yao slips inside. Thankfully, the meeting hasn’t started yet, much to the distressed face of a certain German rubbing his temple. Yao feels only a little bad for him, a lot less than he usually does as the setback of the meeting saved Yao from any humiliation or repercussions. His eyes flicker over the room to find his chair, finding empty ones to assure him that he’s not the only one that failed to be punctual.

Sunlight floods through the tall windows stretching along the left wall of the room as Yao takes his seat. He breathes, pressure lifting from his shoulders. Folding his arms and leaning back against his chair, he lazily rolls his neck to look out the window. His chair is on the far left, and he’s grateful for the placement as it allows him to be one of the nearest to the windows. He doesn’t notice other people and nations filtering through the doors nor does he really care to.

He spots lively birds flying upwards as they tease one another in delight. Gradually, the world disappears around him and the birds feel like the biggest and most sensible enigma he’s ever encountered.

Yao focuses on the birds for a while until they disappear out of sight. As he brings his attention back to reality, he feels something staring at his head. It disappears as he turns to locate the eyes he thought were on him, but finds no one looking too suspicious or attempting to snatch a glimpse back at him.

As he gives up looking for a culprit, he recognizes Japan a few rows in front of him, chin resting on his hand as his other arm lay on the table, and Yao recognizes that faraway look on the Japanese man’s face. It mirrored the state Yao had just been in, that distant, longing stare of something more but technically less, unattainable to anyone of their kind.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is part of a fanfic dump I’m doing of my google drive. Basically, I don’t know if I’ll ever continue any of these that’s I post, though I really really want to, I never have the time or energy to stay committed to them, but I have hope. Anyway, there wasn’t much research done for this chapter, but here’s some fun facts anyway. A lot of it is very basic information that can easily be looked up, but this is what the format will be for each chapter if I decide to continue. 
> 
> Nánjīng is the capital of the jiangsu province. It was the capital of China several times in history. First, it was the capital from 229-280 of the Eastern Wu, one of the three major states in the Three kingdoms period. It was then capital from 317-589 in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and every Southern Dynasty (Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, and Chen) successively. It was the capital again from 937-975 in the Southeen Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty from 1368-1431, and finally it was the capital from 1927-1937 and from 1946-1949 in the Republic of China, right before the Chinese Civil War.


End file.
